<TITLE>04. Par 12-14</TITLE>L-12 Let us turn now to Saint Luke, the 18th chapter, 38th verse. I would like to read this just for a little talk before we pray and have it for the sick.
 And he cried saying, Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
Our scene opens at the north gate of the city of Jericho, A.D. 33. It must have been a cold morning. He was late. He had been dreaming all night, that he could see. And he got up late and made his way to his little station or post where he begged. And oh, in that day there was many beggars. If they didn't get to the gates early, when the people were coming into the business in the city, why, they had to catch the person. Maybe they could afford one coin a day to a beggar.
But they'd all gone in, seemingly now, and there he was left alone. He couldn't hear no one on the road. He looked to he--I mean, listened to hear someone coming. No one was coming. So he goes over, and gets him a rock, and sets down. And he begin to think of the night when he was dreaming. Then he remembered that warm Palestinian sun begin to warm him up a little in his ragged coat, as he set on this rock near the wall, just out of the shadow. And he had his wrinkled face turned towards the ground.

L-13 And he might've been thinking something like this. His mind went back to many years, on that same hillside or near Jericho as a little boy, when he could see... And how he used to love to run up-and-down the hill and pick little buttercups in the early spring, and lay down on the hillside and watch the white clouds go by and the blue skies reflecting. What a beautiful world it was.
And now he was old, and everything is gone, and he's blind and begging for his living. How cruel, it seemed like nature had been to him. And while he was thinking on that, he remembered of how that his mother used to call him from across the hill. Here along about two o'clock in the afternoon, call him in. And after he'd had his midday lunch, he would--she'd set out on the side porch that faced off towards the Jordan river, and she would get him in her arms, and she would stoke his little dark Jewish curls back, and--and kiss him and say, "Bartimaeus, you are the sweetest little boy in all the world. I'm so glad that you're my little boy." And how he would look and see her pretty cheeks, and the big brown eyes as they would smile to him, as she would hug her little boy to her cheeks and kiss him, and...

L-14 And he used to love to hear her telling stories before she rocked him to sleep. One of his favorite stories was about a little boy.
Once in the Bible time... She'd tell him the story of a great mighty prophet that lived, by the name of Elisha, that wore the mantle of Elijah, with a double portion of his Spirit. And how that this man was a great servant of God; how God honored his prayers and honored those who honored him.
And he passed through a certain city, and there was a woman in this city that was a great woman (not a Hebrew, but she was a Shunammite), but she honored that man because he was a great man of God. And she believed in God. And how she would tell him of the courtesy: the great woman would have him stop in and eat with she and her husband.
And one day she said to her husband, "I perceive that this man that dines with us when he's coming through, going up to his cave in the mountain at Mount Carmel to pray, I perceive that he is a godly man, a holy man, a great man of God. I think we ought to do something for him. And they would--said,"I pray thee, on the side of our house here, let us build him just a little house to himself, that... He feels embarrassed, perhaps, to come in and eat with us all the time, so let's just put him a little table out there and a--a little wash basin, a little candlestick, and a bed, a chair that he can rest in, and he can refresh hisself as he comes by.


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